Re: rewrite of TOC checkpoints.

At 09:11 AM 11/4/02 -0700, Alex Rousskov wrote:
>On Mon, 4 Nov 2002, Lofton Henderson wrote:
>
> > Perhaps a definition of navigation mechanism would help, or a
> > limitation on what is considered valid.  Something with some sort of
> > directness and linkage, as opposed to a instruction to the reader to
> > "grep on all MUST occurrences".
> >
> > (Hmm... having said that, a smart "complete-sentence" grep with line
> > numbers and maybe even links -- as opposed to the standard unix
> > single-line dumb 'grep' -- doesn't sound bad.  I.e., the navigation
> > mechanism could be some extra-document process that extracts and
> > presents one or more information-specific tabulations or TOCs.)
>
>We should be careful when allowing external tools such as a navigation
>mechanisms to satisfy a checkpoint. It is always possible to implement
>such a tool. A WG can consider the checkpoint satisfied just because
>somebody has announced the first version of a tool. However, since
>SpecGL does not control the external implementation, it may not
>satisfy SpecGL intentions. As an extreme example, think of a for-fee
>proprietary navigation mechanism sold by a third party.

Good point.  A criterion that David proposed in the telecon, that would 
rule out an external tool (at least for satisfying the MUST part), is:  the 
mechanism must still work in a hard-copy version of the document.

And as you indicated earlier in this thread (the 1st of "Two 
problems/concerns"), we need to refine the statements to defend against the 
trivial, such as claiming that "Look for all sentences containing the word 
'conformance'" is a navigation mechanism.

Those two refinements won't make it into this version, as we ran out of 
time while trying to fine tune the details.  We're posting an active issue 
to ensure they get attention before the subsequent draft.

-Lofton.

Received on Monday, 4 November 2002 20:47:10 UTC